Sausage festival helps keep local school running

SLATON Some Slaton residents would sacrifice anything for their children to attend St. Joseph Catholic School.

This year, those residents and other community members have sacrificed their time to prepare 8,500 pounds of sausage for Sunday's 31st annual St. Joseph Sausage Festival.

"I would sacrifice everything to send my kids there," said Mark Heinrich, whose son and daughter attend the school. "We would sacrifice eating if we had to. It is a good education."

Heinrich said he attended the school and it is "very important" to him that his children go to St. Joseph. He said one of his children's classes has eight students to one teacher and one aide.

Leslie Hurst, who has children at the school and a husband who attended, is the publicity chairperson for the event.

She agreed with Heinrich on the importance of the school, which she said needs the festival to help the school operate.

Hurst said enrollment is smaller, there is more one-on-one interaction, discipline and morals are key factors, and religion classes are required - which is important to her family as Catholics, she said.

All the money from the festival goes directly to the school for teacher's salaries. The school, which opened in 1921, has 13 teachers and 96 students enrolled.

The festival runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at the newly remodeled St. Joseph Hall, located at 600 S. 20th St. in Slaton.

The event includes a meal, a "Fun Fest" next door at the school and other activities, including silent and live auctions, raffles, a horseshoe tournament, games, live music and concessions.

In 1999, 1,400 people attended the festival less than the 1,800 in 1998.

"We have known people to drive from New Mexico, and they come in from the surrounding communities for dinner, for entertainment and for what goes on at the school," Hurst said.

The "authentic German meal" includes secret recipe German sausage or grilled chicken, sauerkraut, German potato salad, green beans and other items.

Meals and all take-outs cost $6, and meals for children 12 and under cost $3.

Much of the meat is held back for the meal; however, the excess uncooked sausage is sold by the pound from 9 a.m. until noon Saturday, or until it is gone. If meat is left, more will be sold Sunday during the festival. The German sausage costs $3.50 a pound and jalapeno sausage costs $3.75 a pound.

Hurst said people started lining up at 7 a.m. last year to buy the uncooked meat.

More than 70 people gathered Thursday to prepare the meat. The preparation started at 7 a.m. and continued for 10 hours as the meat was sent through a grinder, into the mixer where it was blended with spices mixed earlier in the week and then into the stuffer.

Hurst said the recipe originated from a Slaton area family and is more than 200 years old. Forty hogs were slaughtered for the festival, a huge increase from the festival's start in 1971, when four hogs were slaughtered to make 800 pounds of sausage.